In Defense of Uncle Tom

Hollywood Shuffle - NAACP & Uncle Tom

Honestly, it was something I'd never questioned.

For those of you who don't know, within the African-American community, an Uncle Tom is a race traitor: someone who would harm other Blacks to promote him or herself among Whites.  The term comes from an 1800's book by Harriet Beecher Stowe called "Uncle Tom's Cabin", set during the period of American slavery.

But, to be perfectly honest, I never actually knew what it was that Uncle Tom had done to sell out the other slaves around him.

This, of course, is why I love wikipedia.  After all, how could I have figured out everything I needed to know about Ayn Rand last summer without having to subsidize her books?

But that, my friends, is for another blog post.

Point being, I looked up "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and, frankly, I was shocked by what I read.

Here's the link to the plot synopsis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin#Plot

Uncle Tom was a deeply Christian slave who bonded with certain whites in such a way as to convince them of his humanity.  His Christian faith sustained him as he withstood punishment from a hateful slavemaster because he would NOT whip the other slaves.  And when asked to rat out certain slaves who'd escaped, Tom held his tongue, protecting them, even as he's being beaten to death.  He even forgives the overseers for killing him.

Moreover, at the time that it was published, 1852, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was seen as a key abolitionist text, one of the first to highlight the daily horrors of slavery.  It was loathed among the slaveholding class and the author was allegedly referred to by Abraham Lincoln himself as "the little lady who started this great war."

Unfortunately, history was unkind to this book's legacy.  As Reconstruction dragged on, Southern whites took to making blackface stage plays based on the book outside of Stowe's creative control, most of which depicted the near-saintly Uncle Tom as the exact opposite of the character's intention.

Honestly, I don't know what else to say, other than it pays to really know your history.

Picture of the Moment - 01-03-13

"Lincoln" reads Lincoln in The Lincoln

Review: Lincoln

One of the best things I've seen in the last year was Ken Burns' excellent Civil War documentary, but I was always fascinated as to the way all of the combatants referred to each major battle as, simply, "a fight".

Which is why the opening scene of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is so effective: it is, essentially, a fist fight between hundreds of Confederate soldiers and Black Union soldiers in the middle of a muddy, blood-soaked field.

More than anything else, I was moved by the intimacy of this film.


 The war wasn't masses of nameless, faceless regiments moving along a chess board. It was a back breaking street fight to the death, fought among millions.  The debate in the congress over these lofty issues like personhood and citizenship immediately descends into a raucous shouting match full of insults and clever name-calling.  Average citizens come to the office hours of The President of the United States to settle a land dispute.

I was also particularly impressed by the rawness of the politics.  For something so lofty and noble as the abolition of slavery, Lincoln and his cohorts employed every conceivable trick in the book - brides, coercion, misdirection.  I'm reminded of a line from "The Kingdom of Heaven": "maybe one day you'll do a little evil to do a great good."

Reminder, again, that all politics are not just local.  They're personal.

I have some issues with the end of the film.  Frankly, I think the last five minutes are totally unnecessary and hurt the tone and style of the film.  But it's still exquisite.